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The Honest Truth about Fake News … and How Not to Fall for It (with Lesson Plan) | The Lowdown Did you hear that Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump for president? Or that Hillary Clinton sold weapons to ISIS? Crazy, right? And … 100 percent false. But if you were one of the millions of people drawn to a bogus headline in your Facebook feed — or other social media platform of choice — and found yourself reading an article on what seemed like a legitimate news site (something like, say, The Political Insider, which “reported” the Clinton-ISIS story), then why wouldn’t you believe it? Welcome to the world of “fake news.” Digital deception It comes as little surprise that the web is chock full of commercial click-bait hoaxes: get-rich-quick schemes, free Caribbean cruises, erectile dysfunction treatments … you name it. But as it turns out, the internet is also teeming with bogus information sites that masquerade as real news. Even President Obama weighed in, assailing the rapid accumulation of fake news as a “dust cloud of nonsense.” Fake news, real profit, serious consequences

Parent & Educator Guide to Media Literacy & Fake News | ConnectSafely By Kerry Gallagher, JD and Larry Magid, Ed.D Click Here to Download Full Guide (PDF)Top 5 Questions (PDF) Click for press release about guide We hear a lot about “fake news,” but that term, which was coined fairly recently, is really a symptom of much larger problems, including the lack of media literacy. In fact, Stanford Graduate School of Education recently found that more than 80% of middle and high school students surveyed were unable to distinguish between advertisements and real news stories. Until fairly recently, media were concentrated in the hands of a few organizations, but now it’s all around us. And, sad to say, we can’t always trust people in authority to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” In this uncertain climate, how can parents and educators help the children they care for to be critical, but not jaded, consumers of the media they encounter? History Not everything that’s inaccurate is necessarily a deliberate lie. Practical Tips: Resources Snopes

Six easy ways to tell if that viral story is a hoax “And so it begins … ISIS flag among refugees in Germany fighting the police,” blared the headline on the Conservative Post; “with this new leaked picture, everything seems confirmed”. The image in question purported to show a group of Syrian refugees holding ISIS flags and attacking German police officers. For those resistant to accepting refugees into Europe, this story was a godsend. The problem is, the photo is three years old, and has precious little to do with the refugee crisis. But news in the digital age spreads faster than ever, and so do lies and hoaxes. But ordinary people are also starting to take a more sophisticated approach to the content they view online. Reverse image search Not only is a reverse image search one of the simplest verification tools, it’s also the one that showed the “leaked” ISIS refugee photo was a fake. When a link to the story was posted to Reddit, sceptical users swiftly took to Google to query it. YouTube DataViewer Jeffrey’s Exif Viewer FotoForensics

Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting Craig Silverman is the founder of Emergent, a real-time rumor tracker and debunker. He was a fellow with the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, and is a leading expert on media errors, accuracy and verification. Craig is also the founder and editor of Regret the Error, a blog about media accuracy and the discipline of verification that is now a part of the Poynter Institute. He edited the Verification Handbook, previously served as director of content for Spundge, and helped launch OpenFile, an online local news startup that delivered community-driven reporting in six Canadian cities. Craig is also the former managing editor of PBS MediaShift and has been a columnist for The Globe And Mail, Toronto Star, and Columbia Journalism Review. Rina Tsubaki leads and manages the "Verification Handbook" and "Emergency Journalism" initiatives at the European Journalism Centre in the Netherlands. Channel 4 set out to investigate who was behind the account.

Lesson Plan: How to Spot Fake News | Channel One News The problem of fake news came to a dizzying head in 2016 when a man fired a shot in a family pizzeria as he “self-investigated” a false report of a child abuse ring led by top democrats. A BuzzFeed report confirmed that fake news stories, such as the one that claimed Hillary Clinton sold arms to ISIS, were actually viewed more times than articles from established and legitimate news sources. Did fake news have an impact on the election? How do we address the problem from here? This lesson plan features a Channel One News report on the problem. Opening Activity Warm up: Ask students: How do you get your news? Words in the News: Review this word prior to viewing the video. propaganda (noun): Information that is often exaggerated or false and spread for the purpose of benefiting or promoting a specific individual or cause. Heard on the Air: “If we can’t discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems.” Watch Video: “Fake News on Facebook” Discuss Take a Survey Write

News and Media Literacy: Building Critical Consumers and Creators | Common Sense Education News and Media Literacy: Building Critical Consumers and Creators Wednesday, March 29, 2017 - 1:00-2:00 pm PDT More and more, young people (and adults) are getting their news online and from social media. In this webinar, Kelly Mendoza, director of learning and engagement for Common Sense Education, leads participants on an exploration of news and media literacy, including the latest research on kids and news, what "fake news" is and how to spot it, and ways teachers can integrate news and media literacy into their curricula. Kelly also debuts the new News- and Media-Literacy Toolkit from Common Sense Education, with resources for educators to help build students' skills in being critical media consumers and creators.

Media/news literacy resources too good to miss! If you read this blog at all, you know I am a fan of Katherine Schulten’s posts for the New York Times Learning Network. This morning she outdid herself with a round-up of resources entitled: Skills and Strategies|Fake News vs. Real News: Determining the Reliability of Sources, in honor of News Engagement Day, coming up Oct. 6. This essential toolkit will update and enhance your explorations of credibility and reliability! How do we discern truth from rumor and identify bias in a 24/7 news cycle enhanced by citizen journalism, continual streams of real-time reporting, user-generated content, a social media landscape rich with multiple perspective and possible hoaxes? The answer has to do with helping learners become critical consumers of the news. Among the goodies is this TEDed lesson: And this one: What is News Literacy and Why Do You Need It? You might also be interested in my post Sandy and media literacy, as well as

What Essential Web Literacy Skills are Missing from Current Learning Standards? by An-Me Chung and Iris Bond Gill Our lives — and work — are moving online. Are current learning standards addressing the essential web literacy skills everyone should know? Increasingly, every job will become a digital job — whether field worker, designer, engineer or educator. Employers, education, and other institutions are looking for those with the agility, skills and know-how to participate and thrive in the 21st century. Knowing how to read, write, and participate on the web has become essential in our rapidly evolving and interconnected world. As an organization driven to build a healthy, safe and open internet that is a public resource for all, Mozilla has assembled a set of standards for web literacy and 21st Century (21C) skills. Crosswalk We examined the following workforce and learning standards to better understand what essential web literacy skills were included or missing. The analysis also highlighted critical gaps in the standards outlined above. U.S. U.S.

factitious Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a “post-truth” world We were guaranteed a free press, We were not guaranteed a neutral or a true press. We can celebrate the journalistic freedom to publish without interference from the state. We can also celebrate our freedom to share multiple stories through multiple lenses. But it has always been up to the reader or viewer to make the reliability and credibility decisions. News literacy is complicated. Professional journalists themselves face new practical and ethical challenges relating to anonymity, privacy and safety, as well as reliability in their attempts to verify sources of breaking news from social media and user-generated content in all media formats. Even news that is vetted by editors and publishers sometimes emerges from that process a bit processed, perhaps leaning in a particular direction. And word choice itself is connected to truth. On news literacy In its glossary, Stony Brook University’s Center for News Literacy defines news literacy as: Our kids need new types of filters. Fake news

Media Literacy Defined | National Association for Media Literacy Education The Basic Definition Media literacy is the ability to ACCESS, ANALYZE, EVALUATE, CREATE, and ACT using all forms of communication. In its simplest terms, media literacy builds upon the foundation of traditional literacy and offers new forms of reading and writing. Variety of terminology – Some definitions and clarification The term “media literacy” is often used interchangeably with other terms related to media and media technologies. Media refers to all electronic or digital means and print or artistic visuals used to transmit messages.Literacy is the ability to encode and decode symbols and to synthesize and analyze messages.Media literacy is the ability to encode and decode the symbols transmitted via media and the ability to synthesize, analyze and produce mediated messages.Media education is the study of media, including ‘hands on’ experiences and media production.Media literacy education is the educational field dedicated to teaching the skills associated with media literacy.

USA Today: Students need to know this for media literacy Students today are increasingly turning to online new sources to meet their research needs. Because of this, it is important for educators to teach students about trustworthy news sources and separating real news from fake news—but how can teachers impart these media literacy skills when trends in journalism are constantly shifting? In “Media Literacy: A Crash Course in 60 Minutes,” hosted by edWeb.net and sponsored by Mackin Educational Resources, Michelle Luhtala, Library Department Chair at New Canaan High School, CT, interviewed Greg Toppo, the National Education and Demographics reporter for USA Today, about today’s shifting trends in journalism and how teachers can help students identify reliable sources. Know 4 Qualities of Good Journalism “Is there such a thing as objective journalism?” asked Luhtala, beginning the interview. “If you can be complete, honest, accurate, and fair, objectivity shouldn’t even matter,” he said. Consider How the Content is Sponsored

Skills and Strategies | Fake News vs. Real News: Determining the Reliability of Sources - The New York Times Video and a related lesson plan from TEDEd. Update: Please also see our new, 2017 lesson, Evaluating Sources in a ‘Post-Truth’ World: Ideas for Teaching and Learning About Fake News _________ How do you know if something you read is true? Why should you care? We pose these questions this week in honor of News Engagement Day on Oct. 6, and try to answer them with resources from The Times as well as from Edutopia, the Center for News Literacy, TEDEd and the NewseumEd. Although we doubt we need to convince teachers that this skill is important, we like the way Peter Adams from the News Literacy Project frames it in a post for Edutopia. As he points out, every teacher is familiar with “digital natives” and the way they seem to have been born with the ability to use technology. Below, a roundup of tools, questions, activities and case studies we hope can help reduce this digital naïveté. Getting Started: What is News Literacy and Why Do You Need It? Video and a related lesson plan from TEDEd. 2.

MIL as Composite Concept Empowerment of people through Media and Information Literacy (MIL) is an important prerequisite for fostering equitable access to information and knowledge and promoting free, independent and pluralistic media and information systems. Media and Information Literacy recognizes the primary role of information and media in our everyday lives. It lies at the core of freedom of expression and information - since it empowers citizens to understand the functions of media and other information providers, to critically evaluate their content, and to make informed decisions as users and producer of information and media content. Information Literacy and Media Literacy are traditionally seen as separate and distinct fields. UNESCO’s strategy brings together these two fields as a combined set of competencies (knowledge, skills and attitude) necessary for life and work today.